Doctor Anywhere: Healthcare

A common prescription refill is exactly the sort of thing a telemedicine app should be good for. However, this depends on the company keeping stocks of common medicines on hand, and not being supplied by factories apparently located beneath the ice in Antarctica. In what world does it take two weeks for a box of pills to travel to a warehouse? Is there a single artisan carving them individually by hand out of massive blocks of pill cement? Are they wrapped individually and delivered one at a time by injured bats? Or does the business model of this medical service provider rely on providing as little service as possible?

I’ve never written an app review before, but I was so utterly frustrated by my experience with Doctor Anywhere that I had to. I’m short - the scheduler system is really broken and doesn’t update in real time at all. And the doctor supply is too low, but patients are stuck without options. Details: Situation is that I needed to do a supervised Covid ART test, and Doctor Anywhere is the only official option to do this virtually. Tried the “book doctors available now” and waited through the entire 5 min countdown. I was led to believe that it would be successful because the app messaging says calls are picked up between an average of 1-5 mins. They must not include calls that never get picked up in that average. If there aren’t doctors available, don’t direct a user to the live call. Tried scheduling in advance from a list of doctors and times that the app suggested they were available. Tried 6+ times for different times with different doctors - all of which were suggested by the app as available times. Then after 10+ clicks per booking attempt (which was the same information I had to put in every time), at the end it said “not available, pick another time”. I gave up on DA and booked with Speedoc and had a very easy time getting a GP virtual appointment within the hour. Also got a referral for the professional ART sent to me right away. Then booked the Supervised ART with DA (lots of supply there), and attended the appointment. Then I was told they can only do Supervised ARTs on basis of a referral from a DA doctor. This was NEVER made clear before! If this is the case, then it should be set up as a 2 part booking, or at least give a big warning in advance. It doesn’t make sense that other licensed doctors couldn’t refer. If they’re going to create a racket / lock up on GP referrals for ARTs, then at least they have to have enough supply of doctors and a functional booking system!

Had what I think was flu and was feeling too poorly to drag myself to the dr. Then I found this app. In ten minutes I had signed up, answered all the questions and had a video chat with a dr. Within three hours of that, my prescribed meds were delivered. This couldn’t be more convenient!